Beachcomber

The turnout for the primary electionon September 15 was, by allaccounts, lower than expected.One Wave editor went to his westend polling place at 7 a.m. and wasthe number one voter for his electiondistrict. When he went back tothe same polling place with hisdaughter at about 7:30 p.m. thatsame night, she was given number41. That means only 40 people votedat that ED in the intervening 12hours. Not much of a turnout, evenfor a primary. We wonder howmany voters will turn out for thecitywide runoff election onSeptember 29.

Speaking about the election, at least three veteran City Council members who voted with the mayor to extend term limits were turned out of office on primary day. James Sanders Jr., who represents much of the east end of the peninsula, won the primary with a little over 40 percent of the vote against four challengers. Sanders told us that he expected to get more than 75 percent of the vote, but backing the mayor in the critical term limits vote seems to have impacted his candidacy. Perhaps his Republican challenger in the November 3 election will find that Sanders is vulnerable when the election is one on one.

The NYPD opened it state-of-theartTransit District 23 headquarterson Beach 116 Street last Tuesday.Lots of dignitaries, includingPolice Commissioner RaymondKelly, were on hand for the officialopening. Kelly lauded all of Rockaway'scops, and especially thosewho patrol the subway, for a largedrop in crime over the past fewyears. Transit District 23 covers allof the city's transit facilities fromFar Rockaway to Rockaway Boulevardin Ozone Park.

Mark your calendars for October 25 and the 100 Precinct Community Council's Oktoberfest at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Beach 90 Street. This year, the organization will honor John Lepore, local insurance broker and long-time president of the Rockaway Chamber of Commerce. The breakfast will run from 10 a.m. to noon.

John Liu, who is in the runoff electionfor comptroller dropped intoThe Wave two weeks ago for awide-ranging discussion of Rockaway'sproblems and possible solutionsfor those problems. Themembers of the paper's editorialboard were impressed by Liu andhis candor.

You may have wondered what Mayor Mike Bloomberg would come up with next to bedevil city dwellers. Well, wonder no longer. His latest blast is to ban smoking in city parks, including Rockaway's beaches. After he was blasted for his plan, he stepped back a bit, saying that he wanted the smoking ban "only for certain areas, where smoking can be restricted." The mayor also admitted that it would really be tough to enforce any ban on smoking on the beach, because his parks enforcement police "have other things to do," but that he wanted to protect everybody's health. "If somebody wants to kill themselves [by smoking], that's ok, but I want to keep them away from youngsters and those who don't want to smoke," the mayor said.

The City Council has once againmade it more difficult to do businessin New York City. The councilrecently voted to require translationservices at city pharmacieswith four or more stores in thecity. Those pharmacies will haveto provide a person who can translatefor residents who are not proficientin English. That sounds fineon the surface, but means that thepharmacies will have to hire severalpeople fluent in other languagesto sit around and wait forsomebody who can't speak Englishto come in and ask for help. Who isgoing to pay for those translators?Their cost will be built into theprices that everybody who usesthe pharmacy pays.

Former Rockaway resident Jay Walder, whose father Bernie was once the managing editor of The Wave, has been approved by the New York State Senate as the new chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Walder grew up in Arverne, and often rode the A Train to work in Manhattan when he worked for the MTA years ago. He most recently ran the London (England) Transit Authority. He will begin his tenure in early August, reports say.

Here's the deal if you are a citytraffic enforcement agent. Themore tickets you write, the moremoney you make. In addition,those who write the most ticketsget assigned more overtime, sothey can earn even more money.They also get their choice of tours,so that they probably will not haveto work during the weekend period.That's called an "incentive." Allagents have "productivity goals,"that they have to meet to keeptheir jobs. It has become a sickjoke in this city that everymotorist has received at least oneticket in the past year, and manyhave received more than one. Justlast week, we spotted a TEA givingto ticket to a United Parcel Servicedriver who was delivering a packageto the Wave office. The driversays he gets several each day.

Many parents are reacting with incredulity about the school report cards recently handed out by the DOE. They know better than anybody the quality of their children's school and they look at the report cards as just another propaganda message from candidate Michael Bloomberg.